Interference Part One, where do I start with you?

If I had to describe this book in one word, it would be 'meaty'. It's doing an awful lot of work. There are a lot of moving parts, a lot of Faction Paradox lore to absorb, a lot of characters doing a lot of things. There's a lot to follow, so it took me a while to get through as I tried to digest it. Because of this, I think I percieve it as having been a 'slow' book, but I don't think that really is true. Each chapter is full of intrigue, moving the story along. However, none of it is linear, so to understand, you have to be paying attention. I feel this is a book, just as Unnatural History, that one would get a lot out of rereading.

The Doctor is having a hell of a time in this one. Beaten, tortured, writing on the walls of his prison in blood, his only friend executed... Yeah, Eight is having a classic adventure. I'm not sure I totally understand why he's in the prison, but in order to get out, he's doing some weird blood magic with the maths base code of the universe. As you do. He's also hanging out on a hill telling this story to someone else, presumably another Time Lord.

And this Time Lord is I.M. Foreman, of junkyard fame, I presume. In the Third Doctor's life, Foreman is at the head of a travelling show which he's taken to the planet Dust, which is where the Faction live. In the Eighth Doctor's life, she's hanging out on a hill. Typical Time Lord stuff I guess. Meanwhile, the Faction are up to all sorts of mischief - either as of yet unexplained or I did a classic me and didn't quite understand it. For reasons best known to them, a faction of the Faction (who used to be the Faction but now don't remember that except for their weird TV transmission brains) have taken over a conference in weapons dealing.

This is where, for the first time, we meet Compassion - a character I was hitherto aware of, but I didn't realise this was her introduction, or that she was one of the Remote (the Faction faction. Keep up). Remote, because of the TV signals in their brains, get it? And then she kidnaps Sam and puts her onto the TV transmission line and gives her a classic Sam bad day. There's also a horrid Welshman, other Faction agents, and some weird flashbacks to Sam on some bad trip. Of course.

Sarah Jane is also there, because of Eight's blood maths magic. She's entangled in the scheme, blonde for some reason, and at this weapons dealing conference where she meets Sam. And then she meets an Ogron who comes for tea. Of course. Meanwhile (or previously?) she's also at I.M. Foreman's travelling show on the planet Dust, which she nor Three are meant to be on. Because the Faction is meddling in time that doesn't exist. Or blood maths magic. Hard to tell.

Oh, and Fitz has been split up from them and forcibly inducted into the Faction. On another world in another time. Why not?

As I say, there are a lot of things happening here. It also feels very much like a Part One. There are a lot of strands waiting to resolve and coalesce, which I'm not mad about because obviously, I'm about to start Part Two. I have been on the periphery of Faction Paradox for a while, having known broadly what it is, but not really having dived into it. I still feel intrigued by it, but this book has perhaps shown me that maybe the Faction as a genre won't quite do it for me. I can't quite explain it, but I think maybe it's all a little too lore-rich blood-cult for me.

That said, I did enjoy this book, even if I didn't 100% understand it all. Lore is something I'm both intrigued by and don't have much patience for. Oftentimes, Lore can get a little too long winded and deep, and forget it's meant to be telling an engaging story too - this is much the same issue I have with Lord of the Rings. Beautiful worldbuilding, but at the end of the day, I just don't really care. I don't think I have a 'worldbuilding brain'.

But I digress. Interference Part One is one hell of a book, and despite the fact I'm not a Lore person, I was engaged through the whole thing. Interesting and intriguing is, to me (especially after some of the other EDAs to date), a great big win.